Event on the Memory of Mikaloyus Čiurlionis held in the House of Friendship of the Peoples of Tatarstan

The creative meeting dedicated to the memory of a Lithuanian artist and music composer, Mikaloyus Čiurlionis, was held today within the framework of the 15^th Kazan Muslim Film Festival.

The guests of the House of Friendship of the Peoples of Tatarstan enjoyed the music composed by Mikaloyus Čiurlionis and performed by his great-grandson, a Lithuanian musician, Rokas Zubovas, and watched the film about the life of the artist, Letters of Sofia.

‘Lithuania meets Kazan! The same feelings of meeting different cultures one can find in the works by Čiurlionis’, noted Inga Vidugirite-Pakieriene, a cultural attaché of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Russian Federation, expressing her thanks to the Kazan Muslim Film Festival for creating the space for communication between different cultures.

The participants of the creative meeting could also enjoy a photo-exhibition, Unknown Pages of Creativity, also dedicated to Čiurlionis. The photos that were taken by the artist himself in 1905 in Anapa, before he met his wife Sofia, were presented to the public recently.

‘I am pleased that a beautiful tradition has emerged in the recent years. During the days of the Kazan Muslim Film festival, we invite our colleagues, participating in the event, as well as the representatives of the diverse communities of Tatarstan to meet here, at the House of Friendship of the Peoples of Tatarstan’, commented Irek Sharipov, the director of the institution.

Earlier, the Letters of Sofia, the film dedicated to the history of relations between Mikaloyus Čiurlionis and his wife, a Lithuanian writer and public activist Sofia Kimantayte, was screened within the framework of the 15^th Kazan Muslim Film Festival. The leading part in the film is played by a great-grandson of the composer, Rokas Zubovas, who attended the event in the company of Maria Korenkaite, who played the role of Sofia.

‘I wish that the music of Čiurlionis continued to sound even after the film. The film reflects his last years, whereas the photographs presented at the exhibition capture him as a 30-year-old successful music composer, who had just begun his way in fine arts. However, at the very beginning of his way, when no one knew that he would be an artist, one can easily find some artisitic motifs in his music’, shared his impressions Rokas Zubovas.

At the event, Zubovas performed four miniatures of Čiurlionis on the piano: Little Dream, Pastoral, Autumn and Church of the Angel of God. Then, together with his wife, Sonata Zubovene, he also performed a symphonic poem, In the Forest (arranged for piano), the work, which is believed to mark the origins of the professional Lithuanian music.